Point Of Departure Research Articles

Marketness and Governance: A Typology of Illicit Online Markets

ABSTRACT The preceding decade has seen an explosive growth in illicit online commerce, and scholars are increasingly occupied with the study of illicit products, their buyers and sellers, and the platforms and markets in which they are found. Despite sharing one basic characteristic, the exchange of illicit goods and services, there is extensive variation between illicit online markets: Some markets employ currencies, others are based on barter. Some markets exhibit strong social control, others appear anarchic. Traditional theoretical explanations to the organization of illicit markets, which assume that optimization or evolution drives their organization, find it difficult to explain these variations. I propose a typology of illicit online markets that appreciates this heterogeneity and uses it as a theoretical point of departure. Drawing on social control theory and economic sociology, I argue that illicit online markets can be separated across two axes: administrative governance and ”marketness.” This conceptual framework is not prone to functionalist inference and instead implies a less deterministic understanding of how illicit online markets come to be. In turn, this framework encourages the classification and comparison of individual markets, as well as comparative analyses of marketplaces.

Effect of Employee Mentoring on Performance of Universities in Tanzania

This research study assessed the effect of employee mentoring on the performance of universities in Tanzania. The study employed the cross-sectional design and encompassed all 28 fully developed universities in Tanzania, encompassing both mainland and island institutions in Zanzibar. A sample size of 379 was derived via simple random sampling to select necessary respondents from the universities. Primary data was gathered through a survey structured questionnaire, while secondary data was acquired through documentary reviews. The quantitative data collected was analyzed using descriptive statistics. In addition, inferential analysis was performed via correlation analysis, hypothesis testing, and regression analysis. The study's findings show that employee mentoring had a statistically significant positive effect on the performance of universities in Tanzania (R=.875, R2=.766, p<.000). The resultant coefficient of determination R2 of 0.766 signified that 76.6% of universities performance is explained by employee mentoring. The model’s R value of 0.875 and the R2 value of 0.766 signified the appropriateness of the model employed in establishing the link between employee mentoring practices and performance of universities in Tanzania. The linear regression models were used. Hence, a strong departure point in drawing conclusions and comprehensive recommendations.

Decolonizing Higher Education in Norway: Critical Collaborative Autoethnographic Reflections on a University Pedagogy Course

Globally, there is a trend in academic development to centralize the importance of decolonizing curriculum and pedagogical practice in higher education (HE). In Norway, despite internationalization, diversity and inclusion being highly regarded values in HE policy documents, efforts towards decolonial change and transformation of curriculum and pedagogical practice in HE seem to be largely ignored. Understanding university teacher education as a driver of institutional educational transformation, this article contributes to the effort of decolonizing HE in Norway. Utilizing critical collaborative autoethnographic methodology, we reflect on our own roles in our early attempts to decolonize a course on decolonization and pedagogical practice offered to teaching staff at a Norwegian university college. Taking our point of departure in decolonial theory and the concept of modernity/coloniality, we critically discuss and question the potency of our own roles—as two middle-aged white cis-men and one middle-aged cis-woman, all lecturers with expertise mainly in decolonial theories, decolonial learning and teaching practices, and critical whiteness and critical discourse analysis perspectives—in transforming the ways that Western epistemology prevail in our pedagogical practices. We also address the implications for university pedagogy courses with respect to future decolonizing efforts in HE in Norway.

Beyond the operating room: built environment design knowledge supportive of resilient surgical services

PurposeSurgical services are settings where resilient performance (RP) is necessary to cope with a wide range of variabilities. Although RP can benefit from a supportive built environment (BE), prior studies have focused on the operating room, giving scant attention to support areas. This study takes a broader perspective, aiming at developing BE design knowledge supportive of RP at the surgical service as a whole.Design/methodology/approachSeven BE design prescriptions developed in a previous work in the context of internal logistics of hospitals, and thus addressing interactions between workspaces, were used as a point of departure. The prescriptions were used as a data analysis framework in a case study of the surgical service of a medium-sized private hospital. The scope of the study included surgical and support areas, in addition to workflows involving patients and family members, staff, equipment, sterile instruments and materials, supplies, and waste. Data collection included document analysis, observations, interviews, and meetings with hospital staff.FindingsResults identified 60 examples of using the prescriptions, 77% of which were related to areas other than the operating rooms. The developed design knowledge is framed as a set of prescriptions, examples, and their association to workflows and areas, indicating where it should be applied.Originality/valueThe design knowledge is new in surgical services and offers guidance to both BE and logistics designers.

The limits of liberal justice: on authoritarianism and instrumental theories of law

ABSTRACT In this essay, I use Professor Sucheng Wang's recent book Law as an Instrument: Sources of Chinese Law for Authoritarian Legality as a point of departure for reconsidering the conventional opposition between liberal and authoritarian forms of legality. I suggest that opposition is in turn embedded in an even more elemental distinction between different state forms. Turning to Montesquieu's The Spirit of the Laws, I first investigate the historical and geopolitical processes by which modern political theory reduced the political universe into three species of states (republics, monarchies, and despotisms) and then merely two (democracies and authoritarian states). I then turn to the contemporary genealogy of the concept of rule of law, which arose first as a critique of the rise of the administrative state in the West and then became a means to delegitimize socialist conceptions of legality. I conclude by focusing on the People's Republic of China to evaluate the utility of assessing its legal order in terms of authoritarian legality as well as in terms of democracy more generally.

Confucian propriety without inequality: A Daoist (and feminist) re-construction

ABSTRACT This work is a thought experiment in re-interpreting the virtue of li or ritual/propriety for the contemporary, multi-cultural, world. Using Zhuangzi, the Lunyu, and Zhongyong as my primary points of departure, I re-interpret the Confucian ideas of hierarchy in terms of the Daoist conception of harmony. Many scholars today argue that Confucianism has a relational ontology, yet at the same time, we find that Confucian values can and do lead to rigid and harmful traditions that have historically oppressed marginalized groups like women. As such, I re-imagine what li might look like if we take relational ontology seriously, Drawing from Zhuangzi, I argue that Confucian harmony and order do not necessarily arise out of hierarchy, and that harmony, the most primary goal of li and of the Confucian project, can be best attained through propriety that is influenced by Daoism and feminist values such as equality.

Exponential minor literatures: a Yiddish poem of the Shoah in Judeo-Spanish translation

This essay applies the notion of the minor to the field of translation in order to explore the transhistorical relations between two minor literatures and languages – Yiddish and Judeo-Spanish – that have been radically affected by violent persecution and genocide. Interrogating Deleuze and Guattari’s notion of minor literature as a point of departure, the essay develops a multifaceted analysis of the Judeo-Spanish translation of the Yiddish lament Dos lid funem oysgehargetn Yidishn folk (1943–4). It shows how the translation work of Arnau Pons in El kante del puevlo djidyó atemado constitutes an “exponentially minor” rewriting: a multi-layered practice with the ability of reparation that complicates the notions of the minor and the ultraminor by bringing into the conversation translation in situations of linguicide and epistemicide. The essay’s comparative and interdisciplinary outlook participates in the special issue’s ambition to pluralize the notion of the minor as it proposes to think translation as a modality of postmemory.

Are our parents our neighbours? An ubu-ntu perspective on the golden rule with regard to ageing

Modu wa taba Legae ke karolo ye botlhokwa ya setshaba. Tabakgolo mo taodishong ye ke go araba potjisho ye: na ke tshwanelo gore bana ba ishe batswadi ba bona kgole kua madulong a batsofe? Re araba potjisho ye ka go ganetja bana ba ba phedilego gabotse basa babjwe go isha batswadi mafelong a botsofe. Re tloga re bontsha le gore kgale-kgale gona mafatsheng a Bodikela gobe go na le motlhalefi bare ke Cicero. Le yena o kwana le kganetjo ye moka le moreti mogolo John Milton. Botee magareng ga bao ba phelago, badimo le bao ba sa tlo belegwa bo a senyega ge bana ba isha batswadi madulong a batsofe. Abstract Taking the African conception of community as our point of departure, we argue that the advancing age of parents is no justification for their children to transfer the responsibility of caring for their parents to others, such as to nursing homes. Usefulness is not the defining feature of the worth of an elderly human being, especially a parent. We will show by appeal to Cicero that this understanding was alive in Western antiquity and was upheld in the modern period by, for example, John Milton the poet. To send one’s parents to a nursing home when one is in good health is to destroy and kill the triangular relationship between parents and children.

The Global Institutional Governance of AI: A Four-Dimensional Perspective

Abstract The present debate about the governance of artificial intelligence (AI) is dominated by a narrative of a “global race toward the regulation of AI.” Such a narrative bears serious dangers and should be rephrased as the “race toward the global regulation of AI” to adequately address the cross-cutting, cross-boundary, and cross-cultural nature of these technologies. If the debate about the future regulation of AI is to efficiently address the serious dangers and potentially existential risks related to AI, then it should be tied to other global governance issues, such as those summarized by the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). For this endeavor to be successful, the substantive questions of regulation must be combined with efforts to reform the present international system with a view to establishing a more efficient and coherent global institutional framework. It is important to be mindful of past obstacles in the reform of existing international organizations and to avoid the need for another global cataclysm to trigger institutional reform; thus, the article follows the idea that cognitive change leads to the transformation of international organizations. As both a technology aimed to replicate the human mind and an example of an important linguistic trend of a rise in essentially oxymoronic concepts, AI is deemed to provide the right point of departure to ponder future modes of human cognition – modes that reflect Einstein’s description of a world as a “four-dimensional space – time continuum,” – which may help to imagine the contours of a future global institutional framework.

Transcriptomics-Based Points of Departure for Daphnia magna Exposed to 18 Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances.

Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) represent a large group of contaminants of concern based on their widespread use, environmental persistence, and potential toxicity. Many traditional models for estimating toxicity, bioaccumulation, and other toxicological properties are not well suited for PFAS. Consequently, there is a need to generate hazard information for PFAS in an efficient and cost-effective manner. In the present study, Daphnia magna were exposed to multiple concentrations of 22 different PFAS for 24 h in a 96-well plate format. Following exposure, whole-body RNA was extracted and extracts, each representing five exposed individuals, were subjected to RNA sequencing. Following analytical measurements to verify PFAS exposure concentrations and quality control on processed cDNA libraries for sequencing, concentration-response modeling was applied to the data sets for 18 of the tested compounds, and the concentration at which a concerted molecular response occurred (transcriptomic point of departure; tPOD) was calculated. The tPODs, based on measured concentrations of PFAS, generally ranged from 0.03 to 0.58 µM (9.9-350 µg/L; interquartile range). In most cases, these concentrations were two orders of magnitude lower than similarly calculated tPODs for human cell lines exposed to PFAS. They were also lower than apical effect concentrations reported for seven PFAS for which some crustacean or invertebrate toxicity data were available, although there were a few exceptions. Despite being lower than most other available hazard benchmarks, D. magna tPODs were, on average, four orders of magnitude greater than the maximum aqueous concentrations of PFAS measured in Great Lakes tributaries. Overall, this high-throughput transcriptomics assay with D. magna holds promise as a component of a tiered hazard evaluation strategy employing new approach methodologies. Environ Toxicol Chem 2024;00:1-16. © 2024 SETAC. This article has been contributed to by U.S. Government employees and their work is in the public domain in the USA.

Bureaucratic sludge: Bureaucratic tasks and procedures leading to experiences of strain

AbstractIn light of the recent conceptual debate about the administrative burdens framework, this article introduces the ‘bureaucratic sludge framework’ as a complementary theoretical approach for social policy and public administration research. The framework enable researchers to pursue novel research questions about for instance the interplay between administrative procedures, informal bureaucratic practices and public employees' experiences of strain and thus addresses a conceptual gap in the field. The article presents a non‐normative conceptualisation, proposing a typology of bureaucratic tasks—information seeking, assessment, implementation, and emotional labour—that may impose cognitive‐affective strain. Finally, a research agenda is outlined, and the bureaucratic task typology is proposed as a conceptual point of departure for researchers to empirically explore and audit practical instances of bureaucratic sludge in their contexts to further theorise and advance our understanding of the phenomenon. Social welfare is considered as an especially fruitful context within which to pursue this research agenda.

Applause, puzzlement, worry

AbstractIn this commentary, I argue that Leon Wansleben’s focus on financial plumbing as a source of central banks’ epistemic and instrumental power will be met by the profession with a mixture of relief, incredulity, and worry. More importantly, I maintain that central bankers’ relationship with finance varies according to whether or not they are independent from elected government, an under researched area. All this works as a point of departure for remarks, drawing on my own memories, on central banking’s relationship with neoliberalism in monetary policy, monetary operations, and banking. Finally, I urge that Wansleben’s method be applied to anti-trust and the micro-economic regulation of utility services.

For a Psychoanalysis of the Flesh

This essay takes the notion of “flesh” as the point of departure for exploring the viability and contemporary relevance of what Maurice Merleau-Ponty has called an “ontological psychoanalysis”. Primary interlocutors will be Octavia Butler’s novel Kindred and Hortense Spillers’s essay, “Mama’s Baby, Papa’s Maybe: An American Grammar Book”.

Ancient and Medieval North Pole Stars


 
 
 In this article, the identification in different civilizations and eras of some cir-umpolar stars as the north pole star are reviewed, the main principles behind and crucial considerations in the past for forming the criteria for north pole star identification are scrutinized, and some profound differences in ancient and medieval views of it are discussed. The point of departure is the identification of the north polar star in Euclid’s Phaenomena as the star HR 4646, and its identification in the Pahlavi Bundahišn and al-Ṣūfī’s Ṣuwar al-kawākib as HR 4893. Because of the inevitable transitory nature of the north pole star, the location of al-Ṣūfī’s north pole star in the manuscript tradition of his magnum opus during the centuries after him is also investigated in detail. A supplementary discussion is included on the confusion between two different entities—the pole of the celestial sphere and the pivot of an indigenous Arabic asterism envisioned as a millstone—in philological, lexical, and literary Islamic works, which chiefly stems from the vague terminology employed.
 
 

Caring about lyricality

ABSTRACT This article offers a close reading of Laura Marcus’s styles of close reading, taking as its point of departure a lockdown recording (in spring 2020) of her lyrical rendition of the ‘Time Passes’ section of Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse. The essay pays particular attention to the enduring place lyricality occupied in Marcus’s critical imagination, both as an object of analysis and as a feature of her own prose. David James argues that Marcus often modelled a mode of critical practice oriented around affectively attentive, densely exemplified, and above all intimate explications of literary expression – a practice whose lyrical textures were themselves a performative affirmation of what that intimacy could creatively and analytically achieve.

Evaluating scientific confidence in the concordance of in vitro and in vivo protective points of departure

To fulfil the promise of reducing reliance on mammalian in vivo laboratory animal studies, new approach methods (NAMs) need to provide a confident basis for regulatory decision-making. However, previous attempts to develop in vitro NAMs-based points of departure (PODs) have yielded mixed results, with PODs from U.S. EPA's ToxCast, for instance, appearing more conservative (protective) but poorly correlated with traditional in vivo studies. Here, we aimed to address this discordance by reducing the heterogeneity of in vivo PODs, accounting for species differences, and enhancing the biological relevance of in vitro PODs. However, we only found improved in vitro-to-in vivo concordance when combining the use of Bayesian model averaging-based benchmark dose modeling for in vivo PODs, allometric scaling for interspecies adjustments, and human-relevant in vitro assays with multiple induced pluripotent stem cell-derived models. Moreover, the available sample size was only 15 chemicals, and the resulting level of concordance was only fair, with correlation coefficients <0.5 and prediction intervals spanning several orders of magnitude. Overall, while this study suggests several ways to enhance concordance and thereby increase scientific confidence in vitro NAMs-based PODs, it also highlights challenges in their predictive accuracy and precision for use in regulatory decision making.

Should We Adopt a Pragmatic Approach to Holocaust Heritage in the 21st Century?

This essay proposes that a pragmatic approach be taken towards Holocaust heritage in the 21st century and beyond. Its point of departure is the recognition that it is now nearly 80 years since the end of the war and we are not making heritage decisions today about such sites based on inheriting them 'untouched' in 1945 and dictating their future role as sites of education, remembrance and pilgrimage. Rather, in acknowledgement that many decades have passed and that buildings from many sites of Holocaust heritage have been put to other uses, I argue that a pragmatic solution is required rather than an insistence that Holocaust heritage must have no function today other than one based solely on remembrance and memorialisation. This essay discusses whether we should be prepared to accept compromises and give up idealistic perceptions of a single 'right' solution that dictates the heritage futures of such sites. The research for this discussion is based upon the 2019-24 International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) project Safeguarding Sites, chaired by the author. This essay thus prizes an approach that safeguards Holocaust sites, but questions what we mean by 'safeguarding', arguing that Holocaust heritage is not like the archaeological site of Pompeii; we have not inherited it untouched and preserved in volcanic ash, nor have we had ownership of it continuously since the end of the war.

‘Executive robbery’: UK public law, race, and ‘regimes of dispossession’ in the Chagos Archipelago

AbstractThis article explores the relationship between United Kingdom (UK) public law and ‘regimes of dispossession’, taking the Chagos Archipelago as its point of departure. This article argues that this instance of dispossession, typically understood as fortifying the military power of the United States, was also part of a wider geography of states dispossessing land for a specific set of economic purposes that were tied to particular class interests. Deploying a relational geographies of materialist public law approach, the article reconceptualizes the scales of public law, extending an examination of its effects and constitution beyond the territory of the UK, and considers public law's relation to capitalism, exploring the ways in which its technologies (re)produce regimes of dispossession. The article argues that the dispossession of the Chagos Archipelago was an example of ‘executive robbery’, a racialized dispossession (produced through conferring displaceability and disposability on the Chagossians) enacted to construct military infrastructure that was key for accumulation in the Middle East.

Inclusive Teaching in Higher Education: Challenges of Diversity in Learning Situations from the Lecturer Perspective

This paper contributes to the dialogue around how to increase inclusion in higher education, taking the lecturer perspective as the point of departure. Theoretically, disability is understood as an interaction, which means that lecturers partake in the constitution of dis/ability in learning situations. Two qualitative interviews were conducted with an interdisciplinary lecturer employed in an institution of higher education in Norway. These data are used for this single case study to illustrate and reflect on the challenges of diversity in learning situations. Findings suggest that the lecturer struggles to encounter their increasingly diverse student population inclusively. Overall, her experiences unpack the outcome of a structural lack of prioritization to ensure accessibility for disabled students at an institutional level at the university where she is employed. This article emphasizes that the responsibility to ensure an inclusive teaching practice in higher education must be recognized and treated as an institutional obligation. To signal its priority, all institutions of higher education should make inclusive training obligatory for lecturers, as well as assigning hours to work on enhancing the development of inclusive skills in this group.

On Sharks Unseen

Basking sharks are the planet’s second-largest fish, and in the summer they feed on plankton in the Sea of the Hebrides, in Scotland. Once hunted for the oil contained in their livers, basking sharks are now a protected species, with tour companies offering the possibility to see and even snorkel with them. There is no guarantee of a sighting, however. This essay takes as its point of departure one such unsuccessful attempt to find basking sharks, undertaken as part of a research trip to learn about the history of shark hunting in the north-east Atlantic. Engaging with literature from multispecies ethnography, the essay considers the implications of treating absences as a condition of research on underwater species. It asks what form the tenets of multispecies ethnography – such as arts of attentiveness, immersion, and sustained participation in the lives of others – can take in oceanic settings. It suggests that direct observation cannot always account for relations with the unseen, and that methodologically and conceptually, the non-encounter offers a way of thinking through the ways that human activity can contribute to the loss of other species.